


Outfoxed

by orangeangora



Category: foxcatcher
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-01 22:38:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4037182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangeangora/pseuds/orangeangora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After tragedy occurs, John du Pont tries to figure out where things went wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Waiting Games

John du Pont trains his binoculars on the bleak winter landscape through a crack in the curtains and frowns.

Yellow police tape, cordoning off the crime scene, flaps and snaps in the wind. An ambulance has long since come and gone. Now things are quiet.

There are four cars out there, and he's pretty sure they aren't about to leave anytime soon.

He stands back up to check the window. Nothing's changed.

He turns away.

He has everything he needs right here. He can outlast them.

He imagines the authorities quizzing the staff, trying to gauge their next course of action.

Do you have any reason to believe that Mr. du Pont is still armed?

No, scratch that, they would certainly be aware of his - well, interest, in firearms. 

Maybe something like, has Mr. du Pont been acting odd lately?

You mean, odder than usual, they'd be thinking.

He can't sit still. Maybe it's the silence making him agitated; it's as loud as any crowd at a match.

And it only opens the door to let the derisive voices crowd in.

Of course, you screwed this up. You had a chance to lead an Olympic caliber team, but no, you couldn't even manage that successfully.

What would Mother say, if she were alive?

I'm not surprised this happened. I always told you that wrestling was a low sport.

Sometimes it's hard to distinguish where the derisive voices end, and the memory of his mother begins.

His pacing brings him to the trophy room. It was here that he'd first met with Mark Schultz, when he'd been optimistic, full of ambition and plans.

"We, as a nation, have failed to honor you," he remembers saying. "I want to see this country soar again."

Had he really said that? It seemed so....well, grandiose. But he must have meant it at the time.

Fragments of memory begin to shift and form patterns.

Until he remembers firing the gun, then blood on the snow.

Everything else is a blank. But he senses he's in trouble anyway.

He's obliterated all of his respectable identities: ornithologist, philatelist, philanthropist - and now, in the eyes of the outside world, will be seen only as a murderer.

He's tried to drive away the familiar demons - loneliness, insecurity, paranoia, but they'd wound up coming back and showed no signs of leaving.

From now on, the name Foxcatcher. would be synonymous not with excellence and distinction, but scandal and shame.

People would gossip. People would talk. I always knew there was something off. 

Everything Mother would have loathed.

He's tried to convert any hint of "craziness," into more acceptable vices (as embarrassing as it might be to have a drunk son, it was far preferable to an insane one), but in the end, he'd failed at that, too.

It had looked so perfect on paper, and in his imagination. Put together a world class team of Olympic-to-be wrestlers, with himself - Golden Eagle - at the helm. But somehow, somewhere, things had fallen apart.

Maybe he should go out, confront the crowd, but they'll just want an explanation, and right now, he simply doesn't have one.

Confession is good for the soul, or so goes the adage, but what if you don't know why you did what you did?

To answer the question of "why", he'd have to go back to the beginning.

Before everything began to unravel.

Before everything fell apart.


	2. First Impressions

John du Pont has always had a passion for collecting things. 

There was a certain thrill in accumulating all the pieces, not to mention a definite satisfaction in hunting them down in the first place. And though the process could be frustrating, it helped to remember that something being out of reach was only temporary.

Everything had a price.

People, in his experience, were a little trickier, but not that much.

Everyone had a price, as well. You just had to figure out what it was. 

He'd chosen to meet Mark at Foxcatcher. Being on his home turf gave him an automatic advantage - not that he needed it, but it couldn't hurt.

Their meeting had gone well, and they'd turned out to have actually had a lot in common: absentee fathers during their childhoods, isolated upbringings, and for these and other reasons, growing up feeling like outsiders.

Kind of eerie, really, in a way.

Not to mention having some pretty big shoes to fill when it came to matching your family's accomplishments. 

You might think that being born into a distinguished family wouldn't have any downside, but in his experience that hadn't turned out to be true. Sometimes it only saddled you with a legacy you could never quite live up to.

Maybe it could actually work to your disadvantage to have things easy. He'd never thought of that before.

After they'd talked, he'd showed off the grounds and the facilities, then dangled in front of him an offer Mark couldn't turn down.

Of course, that was only Plan A successfully executed. Plan B would come later, when Mark's brother and fellow champion wrestler, Dave, the centerpiece and ultimate jewel in the Team Foxcatcher crown, arrived here to train, too. But at the moment, Dave, for inexplicable reasons, balked at coming.

This irked him, but he couldn't help being a little intrigued, as well.

"So," he says that evening, "I met with Mark Schultz today, and I think he's going to move here to train.." He pauses seeing his mother's attention waver. "Sorry, am I boring you?"

"Oh no," she replies, a little too heartily. "Not at all."

Of course, I am, he thinks, but it's not like there's anyone else around he can tell, and there's a possibility, however small, that she might be interested, so he takes a breath and plunges on.

"Just be sure to tell him that the horses are off-limits," she says, when he finishes.

He tries to picture Mark pulling on breeches and boots and taking one of the horses out for a hack in the woods. He can't. Nor can he imagine himself telling Mark this with a straight face. He'll have someone else do it. Delegation is a useful thing.

"That really isn't going to be a problem in the first place."

"Well...make sure he knows anyway."

"Fine," he says tersely. But she's not through. 

"And I hope you won't forget to do a background check. After all, you know absolutely nothing about this man, and if he's going to stay here, at the farm....."

He throttles down the urge to be sarcastic, knowing that his mother will only claim that she's being helpful. 

"I won't forget. Actually, I invited both of the Schultz brothers, but Dave isn't coming right away."

"Why, what's stopping him?"

"Apparently, Dave doesn't want to uproot his family. But he will eventually. How can he pass up a chance to train at such a top notch facility? It's not like he's going to be inundated with offers like this one. America doesn't support its Olympic caliber wrestlers, and it's a crime."

"Or its equestrians," she says predictably. Of course, she would find some way to bring the conversation back to horses.

Unlike Great Britain, he thinks. American is a democracy, so it's not surprising that a sport in which breeding and bloodlines matter so much doesn't appeal to the majority. 

"I just don't want you to get your hopes up," she adds, like he's discussing birthday party invitations, not a business venture. "Maybe you should be satisfied with Mark."

Stop treating me like a child, he wants to scream but restrains himself. (Was he actually acting like one, he wonders, or did she simply bring out that particular quality whenever he was around her?)

But Mother was wrong. At least about this. 

His plan was perfect. There was no way it could fail. 

Dave was probably just cautious. He wanted to wait and see how Mark liked it here before coming himself. Either that or he was holding out for a higher offer. Neither of which was an obstacle that was insurmountable. 

Dave would come to Foxcatcher. He would.

He just didn't know it yet.


	3. Childish Things

Solitude, usually welcome, soon becomes a burden when it's not of your choosing.

John du Pont is quickly discovering this, as he sits In his home, trying to calculate how long it will take before he will run out of supplies and be forced to go out. He knows he needs to deal with this head on, but every time he makes the resolution, he finds some excuse to break it. Postponing the inevitable is making it worse, but knowing that and actually having the courage to act on it are two different things.

Then he has a sobering thought.

What if the police outside have somehow snuck inside and are watching him right now without him being aware of it?

No. Impossible. He has a state of the art home security system, the installment of which he'd personally overseen, and he has (if it came to that) the gun. There was no way they could get in undetected.

That was probably more of his paranoia flaring up. 

Was it, he wonders, possible to be paranoid about one's own paranoia?

To distract himself from such thoughts, he goes into the trophy room and sits down. Here, he can't see any of the commotion outside, and it's a little more peaceful. Plus, it's snowing again. He'd longed for snow days as a child in the winter, although his mother was always quick to point out that according to the forecast, it would taper off by morning, and the roads should be clear by the time he was ready to go.

Mother was a woman of many talents, but she was perhaps most skilled at effortlessly deflating his enthusiasms almost as fast as they could develop.

She'd always hoped he'd outgrow his interest in wrestling and devote his time to cultivating a more genteel sport. But it had the opposite effect. He'd just grown to love it more.

But she was equally resistant, and he'd never managed to put a dent in her conviction that wrestling was a "low" sport.

It had been a weird kind of tug of war between them, something that had never been resolved before she died.

Equestrian sports simply didn't hold the same appeal. Horses, for all their beauty and athleticism, had to be some of the most poorly designed animals on earth. Take a creature that is legally blind by human standards, has legs as delicate as china, and the brain of a pea, and force it through all sorts of gyrations it would never dream up on its own. Left to its own devices, it would put its head down and eat, and depending on what it was consuming and its equally quirky digestive system, eat until it made itself sick.

He goes to the case which holds his wrestling trophies and unlocks it.

And another memory is triggered.

Everything had gone so smoothly after Mark arrived at Foxcatcher that maybe he should have realized that the good times couldn't last, but he hadn't. In the early days, there had been only two things that bothered him. The first was that Mark seemed to be balking at persuading Dave to come. Maybe it was just that he feared being overshadowed and a little encouragement from his coach would eventually banish that. 

The second was that Mother was still refusing to grasp the magnitude of his vision, and still made him feel, whenever he brought up the subject of wrestling, as if he were being childish.

Why had he been so sure that things would change once he won a trophy of his own? They hadn't, but it had seemed possible at the time.

She takes the trophy, gingerly handling like it's going to scorch her fingers and simply looks at him.

How could she do it so easily - with one silent but pointed look - leave him wondering if he was really doing the right thing? He didn't need her words - though they soon came - to grasp the fact that she considered the whole wrestling thing - including his own success - well, ridiculous. Men playing at being boys. 

Did she suspect - about the drugs, the speech lesson in the helicopter, the way he felt - well, never mind about that, it wasn't like he was going to actually act on it? With Mother, the answer to that question was usually "more than you want to know."

There had been one other time, he'd had the opportunity to prove himself to her and failed 

She'd come into the gym to watch - but whatever he'd tried to impress her, hadn't worked. Indeed it had had the opposite effect.

Her gaze meets his, undoubtedly wondering something along the lines of how she could have possibly given birth to such a loser.

And he realizes that nothing he can do to change the situation.

As he's thinking this, she leaves. With difficulty, he resists the urge to go after her to ask why because that would only make the whole experience even mortifying, if such a thing were even possible. 

Had the others noticed? Did they even care?

If his own mother didn't respect him, though, why should anyone else consider him a positive influence, much less a "leader"? And this latest disappointment was just another of his failures - this time, the inability to grow up.

For the umpteenth time he looks out the window. The police tape is no longer the brightest spot on the horizon - night is drawing near, and the sky is streaked orange and gold, looking like it's on fire. The sun is a glowing orange ball sinking slowly out of sight, going out in a blaze of glory.

He picks up the trophy again, runs his fingers over the inscription - and realizes that it's starting to look a little - well, tarnished. How had that happened without his noticing?

He replaces it, sighing.

Mother was right. (She always was.)

He hadn't "won" anything.


	4. Target Practice

The authorities are still out there, and they show no signs of leaving.

Unless he's hallucinating them, but no, John thinks, it's impossible to have the same hallucination for two days straight. Isn't it?

One's memories don't make much company or comfort at a time like this, but he keeps replaying the early days when Mark had come to Foxcatcher.

They'd been friends, he and Mark, at first. Or at least, friendly, or at the very least, much closer than he permitted most people to get.

But there had come a day when all that ended.

The day of their little - altercation, John woke early, headed out to the gym - which he noticed immediately the usual light wasn't on in the windows. Odd. Perhaps they were all out on a run?

He checked his watch - yes, it was time they should all be here and getting down to business.

After all, he'd had a restless night, but he'd managed to get here on time. He'd woken in the early morning hours, his mother's comments about the trophy still replaying themselves, and rather than go back to sleep, he'd wound up coming up with more rebuttals, all more effective than the words he'd used originally but useless.

But he wouldn't think about that now. He had to focus on the future, one step at a time. Focus on getting Dave. Why was Mark dragging his feet on that?

Still no voices. Had they all overslept?

Well, there was no point in going in if no one was there. Instead, he slipped through the trees and hurried along the path until he reached the shooting range.

He pulled out his gun, cocked it and without further ado, emptied a round into the target in front of him.

There. That felt better. When he was shooting, he didn't have to think bizarre thoughts or feel awkward feelings. Everything was narrowed down to target size, and it was a relief.

He'd do a few more rounds, then go back to the gym, where surely, everyone would finally be where they were supposed to be.

As he jogged back, he heard a horse whinny. Useless creatures, all they did, as he'd mentioned to Mark, was shit and eat. Beautiful to look at, he guessed, but ultimately just an expensive nuisance.

Still no sign of anyone? Had they all overslept? Or gotten together and gone out for breakfast? If so, why hadn't they invited him? He was their coach, after all.

No, it was only the coke making him paranoid. Maybe he should consider cutting back - after all, it was up to him to set a good example, but no. He had everything under control. It was just occasionally to take the edge off. He certainly had more than enough stress in his life, what with leading a team to the Olympics.

He'd actually hoped that the wrestling would help him cut back on the drugs, but so far, it hadn't worked out that way.

Still no one in the gym. But he could hear the TV. And when he opened the door, there was Mark and the others lounging around watching TV.

What the hell?

And the "explanation" that Mark gave was ridiculous. Take the morning off? How dare he do this without asking permission? Who did he think he was anyway - the coach or something?

Well, he could at least do him the courtesy of explaining why he wouldn't get Dave. After all, it was the least he could do -

What? He couldn't buy Dave?

Of course, he could. You could buy anyone if you just named the right price. Mother had taught him that long ago. If your child couldn't or wouldn't find a companion of his own, why not simply purchase one? But this wasn't about friendship, it was purely business.

It was simple. And why had he waited this long for Dave in the first place? Whatever he wanted, he could find a way.

After all, money was no obstacle.

This time, he wouldn't take 'no' for an answer.


	5. Leading Men

As usual, John du Pont had gotten his way.

In retrospect, maybe he shouldn't have gone as far as he had. But he'd had a perfect right to get angry. True, Mark appeared to be sulking after their conflict, but he'd get over it. Without Dave, he'd gotten lax, taking the spotlight for granted. He'd done his best to encourage him, to bring him out from under Dave's shadow - and he'd repaid him by letting him down.

If it wasn't for his patronage, Mark would still be living in a crummy apartment, unappreciated and forgotten. Americans had a short memory when it came to honoring their Olympic athletes.

At least, he thought, Dave's presence would motivate him, act as a goad, which he was starting to suspect that he needed.

When Mark had disappointed him like that, fortunately, there was another person waiting in the wings, ready to step into the spotlight.

Mark had been easy to seduce. Not like that (although he couldn't say the thought hadn't crossed his mind). Just easy to impress, that's all,

Though he couldn't deny that he would have given a great deal to have such a natural gift for something (anything), overall, he didn't envy Mark.

But Dave was different. 

He liked Dave. But compared to Mark, he was impossible to figure out. Dave was one of those inexplicable people who was nice to everyone for no apparent reason except that appeared to be his nature. To John, who was used to people who attempted to conceal their motives, however imperfectly, this was baffling, even disturbing. He couldn't quite accept it. There had to be a catch somewhere.

He liked Dave. He just wasn't sure that Dave liked him, or if he was simply being courteous to him because well, he was his boss. His coach.

Speaking of which, compared to Dave, he wasn't much of a coach. He'd only been able to realize that by observing Dave firsthand, but once he had, he couldn't go back to seeing himself in the old way.

And it wasn't just as a coach where he fell short either. 

As a former spouse for one thing (his own marriage hadn't even lasted a year).

And it wasn't only him that appeared inferior compared to Dave, but his family, too. His parents, for one thing.

Watching Dave roughhouse with his kids was a revelation, and again, an unwelcome one. Who knew that there existed people who sought out their children's company rather than tolerating them whenever they happened to be in the vicinity?

Even - the thought had occurred to him one night when he'd woken and he hadn't been able to forget it - Dave was perhaps the kind of son his mother would have preferred. Not a wrestler, of course, but someone who had a real gift for something, made a career out of it and stuck to it, not a dilettante like him. In short: a genuine adult.

The day he'd sat down and watched the documentary again, and this time, saw things through different eyes, detecting the places where it was weak, where things ran hollow. The ending, in particular, was galling. It just didn't convey what he'd hoped it would.

And then the doubts came rushing in.

Maybe Dave really didn't respect him.

Maybe Dave had been mocking him all along

With that, his feelings began to coalesce until he was aware of only one emotion: rage - cold, undeniable and something that demanded action - not later, not someday, but right now. He simply could not let such a slight pass unchallenged.

"Please go warm up the car."

"Yes, sir," came the prompt reply, and with that, he's left alone once again, staring at the screen. And he'd gone out and committed murder. 

He wasn't making excuses, but would he have had the nerve to do this if Mother was still alive?

Maybe. Maybe not. 

After she'd died, he'd come unmoored and had taken months to put himself back together.

After she was gone, so too, was the one person who'd ever had the nerve to tell him directly to his face whenever he was being an ass.

It had been a relief, in a way, but the end, it had worked to his detriment.

Surround yourself with sycophants long enough, and you'll have nothing but fun house mirrors reflecting your image back at you: distorted, and ultimately, grotesque. So when he'd finally found a mirror that made him appear more average sized, he hadn't been able to tolerate it, had wound up smashing it to bits.

He'd once asked Mother if she thought she was capable of committing murder.

If someone was threatening me or my family, I would, she'd said. 

But, she'd continued, why are you asking me such a morbid question in the first place?

No reason really, he'd replied. I was just curious.

What would she say if he told her about what had just happened? He could imagine.

She'd ask if Dave had threatened him in some way, no doubt. Wasn't that the normal question to ask without knowing the precise circumstances? 

Threaten him directly? No. Other things, well, that was trickier to answer. His vision. His image.

It occurs to him now that perhaps Dave hadn't been mocking him after all, but he's exhausted, and can't hold onto the thought.

Now here he sits, with the consequences of that decision still hanging over him, with only the portraits of his ancestors for company, and the ticking of the clock to announce the passing of time.

Well, it was getting late.

He drains his glass and stands up. Checks the window - yes, they're still there.

Unless he was hallucinating them, and there was really no one, just the snowy landscape.

Maybe he really was crazy. Crazy as loon. Crazy as a coot.

(Why were birds always used to connote insanity? Compared to people, they were the sane ones.)

Still. Would they enter while he slept? Well, he'd bring the gun to bed for protection.

He'd figure things out tomorrow. And finally act.


	6. Deep Freeze

It had snowed overnight. And it was freezing. What was the matter with the heat? Had a window broken somewhere and was letting in a draft? Or had it been tampered with on purpose to try and get him to come out - or was that just more of his paranoia?

He wraps himself in a blanket, closes his eyes and imagines what his mother would say if she were here.

"What's the matter? Why are all those cars out there?"

"They're police, Mother."

"Well, yes, I figured that out, but why are they here? What's going on?"

He confesses.

"But why? Did Dave try to hurt you? Was he threatening you?"

"Not exactly..."

"He must have done something. And why is it so cold in here? Turn up the heat before you catch pneumonia. Or at least start a fire."

"I can't - there's something wrong."

"Well, then call and get someone out here to have it fixed. Honestly. And you need to call your lawyer. How long has it been since the...accident?"

"A couple of days."

Sigh strong enough to rattle the window pane, if the wind outside wasn't doing the job already. "Oh, John."

"I'll call the lawyer, and then I'll go to see about the...rest. But are you angry at me?"

"I'm not angry...I'm just terribly disappointed in you." 

Believe me, Mother, he thinks, this time you aren't the only one. 

"I still don't know why you would do such a horrible thing. I thought you were all excited about having Dave come to the farm."

"I was."

Silence. Then, "I hope you're going to make sure the horses are taken care of. They can't look after themselves, you know."

Of course. she had to bring that up.

"To be honest, the horses haven't exactly been uppermost in my mind lately, but yes, I'll make sure they're going to be looked after, if I wind up not...being here for an extended period of time."

"I know you will," she says.

"And I'm sorry for...all of this."

"I know you are," but she doesn't sound convinced. "And please call your lawyer when you get a chance and explain everything to him. You simply cannot handle this on your own. All right?"

"Right. Of course."

"And before you go out in public, be sure you change, that shirt is filthy. Have you been sleeping in your clothes? And brush your teeth, too. Pull yourself together."

"Mother, really!"

"This isn't going away on its own, John. The longer you wait, the worse it's going to be."

"Goodbye, Mother."

He pictures the headlines soon to come: Alleged Millionaire Murderer Emerges From Foxhole After Three Tense Days. The whole experience reduced to bad puns and alliterations, wasn't the way these things worked in the media?

Mother always said there were only three times it was permissible to have one's name appear in the paper: birth, engagement and death. This definitely wasn't one of them.

Well, it was too late to worry about that now.

He does a quick mental inventory: wallet, keys, phone number of his lawyer, yes, all there.

He takes one last look around, ending with a glance at the portraits of his ancestors, all of whom stare back uncomprehendingly.

Then he turns and leaves, ready to face whatever comes next.


End file.
